Sunday, August 16, 2009

I know this has been covered, but there's something in this AFA OneNewsNow article that I wanted to highlight (And no, it's not the ancient Matt Damon-like photo of Thomas):

Focus on the Family is transferring the conferences to Exodus International, according to spokesman Randy Thomas.

"We're talking tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of people influenced by a redemptive view of homosexuality" Thomas says. "The Lord has raised up the ministry of Exodus International to bear witness to the world that he is alive and well and he has a loving response to homosexuality."

Friday, August 14, 2009

Last week, Truth Wins Out released a video by ex-gay survivor Patrick McAlvey of Lansing, Michigan. He has spoken out on local radio and will join me on Culture Shocks radio with Barry Lynn TODAY at 4PM (ET). I hope you will tune in and listen to the live broadcast on the Internet.

Transcript as follows -- and as always, feel free to use:

Patrick McAlvey: It was devastating and it confused and isolated me, I didn’t know how to process what I was thinking and what I was feeling and how to still have any sort of self-esteem and feel good about who I was, with the knowledge that this desire, that is beyond my control, is somehow sinful and wrong.

I think it does a lot of damage to people’s mental health

[I] picked up the phone and called the founder and director of the ministry, in sixth grade, and he had just spoken at my middle school youth group that year.

When I found out I could change, I mean, it was the only hope I could hold onto, ’cause I was so scared and felt very alone, so.

No, I didn’t tell any family or friends, I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and school, and didn’t think it was a safe thing to tell anybody.

In middle school, after I called Mike, the guy who ran the ministry, we started emailing regularly and exchanging letters and talking on the phone occasionally.

Well I distanced myself from Mike sometime in early high school, and really had very minimal contact, he sent a couple letters, but I had very minimal contact until I was 19. And so when I was 19 I was kicked out of a missionary training school and forced to move back home with my family, and I was kicked out because of my attraction to men, and so in that time, I was sort of in a crisis mode and was very low, very depressed and just trying to make sense of my life and mostly of my attraction, so I contacted Mike again, and we started meeting regularly.

That night he suggested we go over to his friend’s house so that we could do “holding therapy.” So we drove together to his friend’s house and had an hour where I was instructed to lay in his arms, chest to chest, and not talk, it was just an hour of silent holding and he told me to feel the strength of another man, smell the smell of another man, feel the security of another man’s arms. And it was supposed to replace, or fill a void that I had from some unmet childhood need.

I thought the holding therapy was very strange, and it made me uncomfortable, but I was willing to try anything, and trusted Mike.

Afterwards, he wanted to know if it felt good, if I had felt safe, and he said the he enjoyed it.

He would initiate prolonged hugs.

I responded with nervous laughter to a lot of his questions, but, again, I was not as skeptical as I should have been, just because I was so desperate for an answer.

As part of the therapy, he asked how large my penis was. He asked if I shaved my pubic hair. He asked about the type of underwear that I wore. On one occasion he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do, and he wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him, and the type of men I’m attracted to. And one time he asked me to rate my own attractiveness, on a scale of 1-10, with separate scores for my face, my hair, my body, and then an overall score. And then after I scored myself, he assigned scores for my attractiveness, each category, and I remember that my hair got the best score and my face got the worst score.

As part of the therapy, he had me come over to his house, and he rented the movie of the play Equus, and he had us watch it together, in his home. In the movie there was full frontal male nudity, and it made me rather uncomfortable to be watching it with him, but it was his idea, and afterwards he wanted to talk about some the dynamics of the play and then also how I felt about seeing the naked actor.

Well, he thought it would be a good idea to learn about home repair and maintenance, those types of things, used tools a little more often. And one time we went to a play together, again, as part of the therapy, and he had me pay for the tickets for the play that we went to, as part of my payment for receiving therapy from him.

I never felt like I was changing, I never saw a change.

We had a discussion and I told him that I wasn’t going to be coming. He said that he was scared for me in that--he reiterated many of the myths he had told me earlier about being gay, that no one was happy who was gay, and that the gay lifestyle was all about drugs and alcohol and random sex and everyone who was gay had STD’s. So, he said that he was scared for me because I was moving toward acceptance of my orientation.

I think that I’ve been damaged in a lot of ways by what Mike did and what the people who support him, or the people who even just allow him to be around, and continues to do what he’s doing. They’ve had an enormous impact on me and, there were years through middle school and high school where I just really came to hate myself, to loathe myself. I didn’t trust anyone, and didn’t allow anyone to get close to me, because I was terrified they might find out secret and that they would think less of me, so I spent many years locked in my room, crying by myself and it just--for no reason, for no good reason. If I had had a fair representation, if someone had told me that it was possible to be gay and happy and have sustained healthy relationships and families and everything that straight people have, then I could have avoided a lot of suffering.

And so I chose to finally embrace the person I was, including my orientation.

And I know there are a lot of people are confused and scared and aren’t sure what to do, and in that situation it’s easy to be taken advantage of and it’s easy to fall for a lot of the false information…

I would like to tell the man who did my ex-gay therapy, that he was wrong, and that the happiest I’ve ever been in my life is when I finally accepted myself. And I would encourage him to consider doing the same thing, and I would tell him that he is doing a lot of damage, and I would want him to know how much damage he’s done in my life, and how much sadness and hurt he’s caused, that could have been completely avoided if he was honest with me, and with himself, about his orientation, my orientation, and the fact that neither of them were going to change.

Those goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, the discrediting of Scriptures that condemn homosexuality , muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrination of children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies.

It’s a perfect storm. (p19)

When Nazi Germany marched its troops into Austria and then “annexed” Czechoslovakia in the late 1930’s---signaling Adolf Hitler’s dangerous and frightening intentions---the response from the rest of Europe was startling: It did nothing. … Essentially their strategy was to ignore the threat, give Hitler what he wanted, and hope against hope that the trouble would soon pass. It didn’t. (p29)

Hitler … subjugated most of the people of Europe to tyranny and slavery. … Millions of men, women and children lost their lives

Today…we find ourselves in a terrible battle of a different sort, but one that also threatens the very existence of society. … The future of the nation is in crisis (p 29-30)

Like Adolf Hitler…those who would favor homosexual marriage are determined to make it legal, regardless of the democratic process that stands in their way. (p41)

The third reason marriage between homosexuals will destroy traditional marriage is that this is the ultimate goal of activists, and they will not stop until they achieve it. (p50)

The homosexual agenda is not marriage for gays, It is marriage for no one. (p53)

homosexuals are rarely monogamous, often having as many as three hundred or more partners in a lifetime---some studies say it is typically more than one thousand (p54)

The apostle Paul described such a society in the book of Romans, referring apparently to ancient Rome: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (1:29-31). (p55-56)

[Re Matthew Shepard] In 1998...Katie Couric of NBC’s Today Show asked a guest one morning if he thought the leaders of Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and the Family Research Council were in directly responsible for Shepard’s murder because of the venom we espoused. …In twenty-seven years I have never said anything hateful about homosexuals on our broadcast, and I do not condone violence or disrespect for anyone. (p68)

~~~~

Now, compare all that with what was recently observed on the Rachel Maddow show:

The Rachel Maddow Show"Nazism is not a metaphor"Friday, August 7, 2009

But we begin with the convergence of two of the great sources of jaw-dropping, I can‘t believe that just happened-ness in modern American politics. We have the mob rule, shut it down, screaming, don‘t talk about health care mobs and we have Sarah Palin.

The now unemployed former vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, who turned to her Facebook page today to add this to our national conversation about reforming our health care system. She said, quote, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama‘s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”

I actually agree. Of course, such a system isn‘t actually being considered by anyone. But don‘t let that hold you back.

Last night, on this show, we hosted Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. It‘s a beltway organization with significant corporate funding. They‘re staffed by experienced Republican campaign strategists, like Mr. Phillips himself.

Americans for Prosperity has churned out a number of what appear to be grassroots organizations. They have names like Patients First and Patients United Now. And these groups are formed to oppose health care reform and to get people to pack these town hall meetings about health care.

These groups direct people to town halls. They give them talking points to use there. And they try to get them fired up.

Here for example is the fire ‘em up message from a speaker on Mr. Phillips‘ Patients First bus tour, which yesterday held an event in Pueblo, Colorado.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this new Obama-care program comes to fruition, when you reach 65 and every five years thereafter, you‘re going to have a counseling session with some federal airhead. Part of this process is called end-of-life counseling and part of the end-of-life counseling can be an end-of-life order.

Adolf Hitler issued 6 million end-of-life orders. He called his program the final solution.

I kind of wonder what we‘re going to call ours.

If you find all this stuff is as repugnant as I do, you need to take it to the next step. You need to notify your congressman. How do you that? How do you notify these people?

You can call them. You can write them. You can e-mail them. Or you can go to their office and put the fear of God in ‘em.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Put the fear of God in them—because what Obama is doing with killing all these people like Sarah Palin said, that‘s like what Hitler did and you know what Hitler deserved.

This is the rhetoric that corporate-funded, GOP-allied groups like Americans for Prosperity are funneling through which they set up to look like grassroots organizations to get people to go “put the fear of God” into elected officials.

“Politico” is reporting that an event planned by Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona was overrun by protestors who showed up after receiving robocalls encouraging them to show up and demonstrate. And, of course, the nice thing about robocalls is it‘s never easy to know exactly where they came from, but it is known that Conservatives for Patients‘ Rights—another one of the fake grassroots organizations, a 20 organization—a $20 million operation run by former hospital CEO Rick Scott—that group posted the time and location of these events on its Web site.

And what has started as rowdy and rude and mean-spirited disruptions has turned, in some cases, into actual violence, with several hospitalizations for minor injuries and some arrests being reported at health care town halls last night. What‘s also evident is that the antireform rhetoric increasingly is invoking specific references to Nazis and specific comparison of President Obama to Adolf Hitler.

Here for example is a 16-year-old wearing a -- 16-year-old at a Denver town hall event wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the president and the words on it, “Hitler gave good speeches, too.” Here‘s a toddler in a stroller at the same event carrying a sign with a swastika that reads, “No to Fascism.” Here‘s a protestor at a Michigan event held by Congressman John Dingell carrying a sign that depicts the president with a Hitler mustache.

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: By the way, his health care logo looks damn like the Nazi logo. I‘m sorry but it does. I didn‘t create either logo, but I have two eyes and I can see. Infuriating Democrats—good. Is Obama not got a Web site where he‘s asking supporters to provide the names of people providing disinformation about the health care system? What did I say yesterday that is not true?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: You know, there are people alive today who barely survived the Holocaust. And there are many people alive today whose whole families were killed in the Holocaust. Nazism is not a metaphor for a political policy you disagree with. Used deliberately as a strategy to characterize a political opponent, it has a very specific resonance with people looking to justify violence. The implication of conjuring up the Third Reich is that, in the case of someone who‘s identified as a Nazi, as a modern day Hitler, violence against that person, even murder, would not only be seen as justified, it might be celebrated.

This rhetorical strategy sets the stage for political violence that the perpetrator could hope would be praised. As such the idea of assassination, other kinds of political violence are always in the subtext. And you know, sometimes assassination isn‘t even in the subtext. Sometimes it just bubbles right up to the surface.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: I wonder what it would be like seriously. I mean, if I could go, you know, to the speaker‘s shindig. Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to—are you going to drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you go. I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.

I really just wanted to thank you for having me over to wine country, you know? To be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or long-time friend of yours which I‘m not. By the way, I put poison in your—no!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Yesterday, we played a tape of a Republican congressman joking about lynching Democratic members of Congress. Now, it‘s conservative national radio hosts calling the President Hitler and conservative national television hosts joking about assassinating the speaker of the House of Representatives.

Right wing media deliberately and systematically invoking both Nazism and political assassination; hostile crowds consistently displaying Nazi symbolism at these demonstrations; the corporate-funded anti-reform movement using Hitler as a rhetorical weapon against the president and against Democrats in Congress—it‘s scary, of course, if they don‘t understand the implications of their actions. And it‘s much, much scarier, still, if they do.

Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer. He‘s the author of “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back.”

MADDOW: Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?

SCHAEFFER: Yes, I do. In fact, this rings a big bell with me because my dad, who was a right-wing evangelical leader, wrote a book called “A Christian Manifesto” that sold over a million copies. And in that book, he compared anybody who was pro-abortion to the Nazi Germans and he said that using violence or force to overthrow Nazi Germany would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of Hitler. He compared the Supreme Court‘s actions on abortion to that and that has ban note that has been following the right-wing movement that my father and I helped start in evangelical context all the way.

So, what‘s really being said here is two messages. There is the message to the predominantly white, middle-aged crowd, the people screaming at these meetings, trying to shut them down. But there‘s also a coded message to what I would call the “looneytunes,” the “fruitloops” on the side.

It‘s really like playing Russian roulette. You put a cartridge in the chamber, you spin, and once in a while it goes off. And we saw that happen with Dr. Tiller. We‘ve seen it happen numerous times in this country with the violence against political leaders whether it‘s Martin Luther King or whoever it might be. We have a history of being a well-armed, violent country.

And so, really, I think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible. The good news is that it shows a desperation. The far-right knows they have lost. They‘ve lost the hearts and minds of most American people, for instance, who want health care.

But they also know they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to only their own sources, who buy the lies, for instance, all this nonsense about euthanasia being mandatory and all the rest of it, and these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things. And we‘ve seen it in front of abortion clinics. I‘m afraid we‘re going to see it with some of our political leaders.

And the Glenn Becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what I regard as an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country that is trying to shut down legitimate debate and replace it with straight out intimidation. It is ironic they‘re drawing a parallel to Hitler.

I wouldn‘t draw such a parallel, but I would draw a parallel to the Brown Church (ph) of 1930s who got into a habit of shutting down dissent and making it look as if they had a majority by spreading out in groups just as these folks do, screaming the loudest and making debate impossible.

So, these are very, very bad signs and I‘m not at all optimistic about how this is going to end in terms of violence, although I do think Obama is going to win the day in terms of most Americans.

The problem is, we‘re not talking about most Americans, we‘re talking about a small, angry group of white people who to—you know, to paraphrase Bart Simpson, the election broke their brains. They‘re angry. And they are ready to do just about anything to stop the process at this point because they‘d rather see us all lose than admit defeat.

MADDOW: Mr. Schaeffer.

SCHAEFFER: That‘s where they‘re at.

MADDOW: . one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you about this tonight is because what you describe as the potential that this could be a coded message. What we‘re seeing here is vituperative language like this from some members of Congress, from some people who are considered to be relatively mainstream, within conservative politics.

But we‘re also seeing it from movement organizers, from people who are organized, like this Americans for Prosperity group. It‘s a very well-connected group. We have the president of that organization on the show last night. He‘s a former political strategist partner of Ralph Reed. He‘s up in the Jack Abramoff scandal. I mean, these people who are—he was the campaign strategist for George Bush‘s primary campaign for president in 2000 -- these are people who are very much linked into the conservative movement.

And so, what I‘m trying to get down to is the question of whether or not this is a deliberate coded message, whether this is sort of a dog whistle that‘s going out on the right by using specific language about Nazism, it is a specific call for violence?

SCHAEFFER: Yes, I would like to just say this and I know this may come off as a little harsh to people, but I honestly think that there is a type of white middle-aged American male, I‘m a white-middle aged—well, I wish I was middle-aged, I‘m over middle age—but a white male about my age who has had a kind of mental collapse. I mean, you look at the way they went after Sotomayor and called her a racist. You look at them now using all these foundations and these groups, lobbyists and others pouring millions of dollars from the insurance industry and stirring up misinformed, right-wing white people, not terribly bright people, the sort of people who are yelling at these meetings.

There is a coded message here. And that is that you have a group of people who like Rush Limbaugh would rather see the president and the country fail, and their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very simple—and that is go for broke.

When you start comparing a democratically-elected president, who is not only our first black president but a moderate progressive, to Adolf Hitler, you have arrived at a point where you are literally leading—leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying the first person who wants to come along and use this, go ahead. Be our guest.

Now, all these people, when something bad happens, will raise their holy hands in horror and say, of course, we didn‘t mean that. We were just talking about being Americans. It‘s American to protest.

B.S. They know exactly what‘s out there. There is a whole public there who went out and stopped up on ammunition and guns thinking Obama would take away their weapons. One such person shot down three policemen in Pittsburgh. I‘d like to know exactly what Glenn Beck and FOX News will say the morning after someone takes a shot at our president or kills a senator or congressman.

And if it‘s one of the people who we find a little note in their car or the literature or their television watching habits whose tied to these people who are stirring the pot, or tied to these foundations that people, like Dick Armey, are running, trying to use insurance company money to make look this fake grassroots movement then—then we‘ll see what happens. But at that point we‘ll be in a new zone and it‘ll be too late.

So, my warning to my old friends on the right and those who read my book, “Crazy for God,” knows that without the work of my father, Dr. C. Everett Koop and myself, there would have been no pro-life movement, no religious right to be fomenting these things from, it‘s the same cast of characters. I came to a place in my life when I realized I had made a big mistake.

Now, we‘ve crossed a line into which hate and vitriol have gone to a point where it is anti-democratic and anti-American. These people do not want America to succeed. They would rather see our system go down than have a black president, someone with different political views, someone appointing people like Sotomayor, Hispanic people, women and others. And we have arrived at a point where enough is enough.

So, these people are hatemongers, and they are distributing a kind of information on two levels. One the lies about the health care system requiring euthanasia and all this nonsense, but on another level, as I say leaving a loaded gun on the table, they‘re calling our president Hitler, they‘re spreading this rhetoric, they‘re spreading these lies.

It isn‘t just a question of being bad journalists anymore. These are bad Americans, and they are putting all of us at risk.

MADDOW: Frank Schaeffer, author of “Crazy for God”—thank you very much for coming on the show. Mr. Schaeffer, we really appreciate your insight. Thanks.

SCHAEFFER: Thanks._________________

James Dobson's book Marriage on Trial, et al, are those loaded guns "left" on the table.

They were designed as weapons of violence, to rip and tear lives apart.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

This is a repost from a thread I started on SoulForce, in response to a request to elaborate on a statement I made about sociopaths:

But, I can’t stress enough, it needs to be understood and accepted that some people do not have the brain capacity to feel normal emotions, and are human predators, just as sure as the brutality of any wild animal. And they don’t wear a bell, but often times wear an air of disarming charm.

(Some simple Google searches will lead to a lot of articles on the subject.)

The subjects were asked to perform a simple task: hit a button as soon as they recognized a word flashed on a computer screen. While monitoring the subjects' brain waves, the researchers alternated nonsensical strings of letters with neutral words such as "table," and emotionally evocative words like "maggot" and "cancer." What they found was that normal subjects spent more time processing emotion-laden words than the psychopaths. "When you see a word like 'cancer,' you have all sorts of associations - fear, or you think of someone who's had cancer," says Hare. "But for psychopaths, the word 'cancer' and the word 'table' had the same emotional connotations - which is to say, not very many. It's as if they're emotionally color-blind."

Even more staggering were the findings of a study conducted by New York City psychiatrist Joanne Intrator, with Hare's collaboration, at the Bronx Veterans Administration hospital in 1993. The investigators employed the same language test, this time injecting the subjects with a radioactive tracer and scanning color images of their brains. As normal subjects processed the emotion-laden words, their brains lit up with activity, particularly in the areas around the ventromedial frontal cortex and amygdala. The former plays a crucial role in controlling impulses and long-term planning, while the amygdala is often described as "the seat of emotion." But in the psychopaths, those parts of the brain appeared to remain inactive while processing the emotion-laden words. That, says Hare, helps explain why a psychopath's conscience is only half-formed. "I showed the scans to several neurologists," recalls Hare. "They said that it did not even look like a human brain. One of them asked, 'Is this person from Mars?' "

Tests like these are scientific indicators, there are also checklists of behaviors that are taken into account in the attempt to diagnose a person as sociopathic/psychopathic.___________This is a long one, so if you're interested, you can read the rest of it here.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

We would be remiss if we didn’t also point out that Charlotte, NC-based pastor Michael Brown was first out of the box with this statement early Sunday morning while most of Americas were waking up to the news

--"…this has all the markings of an act of raw hatred, and as such it must be utterly renounced.”

--“Whatever differences any of us may have… …we must maintain those differences with civility and respect.”

--“…it behooves us as leaders to set an example of civility and respect in the midst of our differences…”

It’s a relatively short article, yet he made good use of it.

The song and dance goes a little something like this: Denounce violence and hatred, plead for civility and respect, rinse and repeat.

Violence and hatred = badCivility and respect = good

Or so the story should go.

My favorite paragraph:

Brown points to the non-violent example of Jesus who instructed his followers to put down their swords and to take up their crosses – meaning, to renounce violence and to practice self-denial – noting that it was this example that inspired the non-violent social movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

And voilà, he is now associated with not only miraculous peacemakers, but also martyrdom.

In any debate over “gay rights,” the word “diversity” is sure to occur, and over the last decade, the word has been used brilliantly by gay activists and educators. After all, who would oppose diversity?---Recent developments in the Netherlands confirm the semantic association between diversity and perversity,---Specifically, the NVD [Neighborly Love (or, Charity), Freedom, and Diversity] wants to allow “individuals, from the age of 12, to vote, have sex, gamble, choose their place of residence, and use soft drugs. . . . They also intend to eliminate marriage in the law, permit public nudity anywhere . . . and to legalize private use of child pornography and allow non-violent pornography to be screened on daytime television” (as cited in Wikipedia). They also want to encourage bestiality, as long as it does not result in the “sexual mistreatment” of animals. All this in the name of maximizing diversity! One must ask again: Isn’t this perversity rather than diversity?---Let us learn a lesson from the Netherlands: Once “diversity” is associated with sexual behavior the sky – or, more accurately – the gutter is the limit. Now would be a good time to redefine our terms, and the sooner we desexualize “diversity,” the better. This is now a term behind which homosexual activism can no longer hide.

Just one of the many “civil” and “respectful” articles on his Coalition of Conscience website.

Brown to commenter Dan: I’ve actually interacted extensively with Patrick in the past and understand his points and his methods quite well. He has also written more than one article attacking me and my statements, so I think there’s actually more of a “connect” — and strong disagreement — between us than you realize.

“Strong disagreement” is an understatement. IMNSHO, he’s a sociopath, or at the very least, his sociopathic tendencies are in full bloom. I also put him in the Barber / LaBarbera camp when it comes to longing for the day that LGBT Americans can be legally put to death. He’s just a bit more refined about hiding it.

Further, to the extent that his statements are unwarranted attacks, they are worthy of attack. And to that extent, so too is his behavior.

So, yes, I’m attacking his character and his statements, but he ain’t no victim.

Gaslighting: [I]s a technique used to either scare a person, or to cause them to appear to discredit their own judgment or even sanity in front of others.

In this case, he gets a royal kick out of convincing members of the pro-LGBT community that his stated motives are genuine. Double points if he can persuade someone to make a 180º turn around. The prize is getting us to second guess ourselves in the face of his hate speech.

Hate speech = hatred = hate crime. You’d have to be stupid to not see that hate speech leads to violence, and I’m sure there are many people who are that stupid, Brown, however, is not one of them. He oozes cunning, and all we degenerates are just pawns in his world, to be toyed with for his amusement.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Set up: I'm only using Virginia Foxx's statements as an example of the talking points that so many Republicans and their brainless followers are regurgitating.

I want to highlight some "socialized" health care testimony from someone who would know---a Canadian.

But first...

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC): “There are no Americans who don’t have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare,” she says. “We do have about 7.5 million Americans who want to purchase health insurance who can not afford it,”

More Foxx..: Some people think that the solution involves a Washington takeover of your relationship with your doctor where Washington tells you what treatment you can or cannot have. That may sound good until you get a letter from Washington informing you that you’ve been denied a procedure or medication because it’s not approved. Not approved by who? A bureaucrat, not your doctor.

Still more Foxx..: The Republican plan would "make sure we bring down the cost of health care for all Americans and that ensures affordable access for all Americans and is pro-life because it will not put seniors in a position of being put to death by their government."

It was started by a user named offog who is from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. I found it quite illuminating and asked if I could post it here, and hooray, offog said yes:

offog: I was watching The Daily Show on Wednesday night, and one item stuck with me. It showed several short clips of people saying that government-run health care would mean government bureaucrats standing between you and your doctor. That was pretty much the wording each speaker used. It seems to be a big talking point these days for opponents of universal health care. One guy even added, "like they do in Canada." Whaaat? I'm a 50-year-old Canadian gal, and I've never had to deal with government interference in my health care.

I'm appealing to the folks in blogland to help spread the word that this talking point is totally BOGUS! Why do I care? It's all about my favorite motto: "What we desire for ourselves, we wish for all." The quotation is from J.S. Woodsworth, one of those EEEVIL Canadian socialists who was a Member of Parliament during the 1930s.

I'd like to give a couple of examples of how things really work with Canadian Medicare. Back in 1992, I found a lump in my breast. I went to my G.P. for an exam, and he referred me to a specialist. The specialist examined me and scheduled me for a biopsy on the spot. Within a couple of weeks, I was in the hospital for the surgery. Shortly after that, I got the result. (Fortunately, the lump was benign.) All I had to do to get this treatment was show my health card.

One winter morning a few years ago, I was walking to the office when I slipped on a patch of ice, fell backwards, and hit the back of my head really good. I didn't feel any dizziness, so I though I was okay. Then late in the evening the next day, I came down with a severe headache and nausea. I was worried about a possible concussion, so I called the Health Line. That's a 24-7 hotline staffed by nurses. I explained my situation to a nurse and asked if I should go to the Emergency Room. She said I should. Fortunately, the nearest hospital ER is just a few blocks from my home.

When I got to the ER, I went to the reception desk, showed my health card, and explained the problem. The person at the desk filled in a short form. I had to wait only about half an hour or 45 minutes for someone to see me. They scanned my head, told me I was okay, and gave me a couple of pills for the headache and nausea. By then, it was after midnight and I was a little nervous about walking alone that late. A staff member got a nice security guard to give me a ride home.

At no point in either case did anybody have to contact any government office for permission for exams, tests or treatment. No big long forms to fill out in triplicate. No endless sitting on hold on the phone, waiting for some bean-counter to get to my case. No having to worry about coverage being denied. Ya hear that? No bureaucratic interference!

Last year I watched the Michael Moore movie, Sicko. I saw all kinds of bureaucratic interference from the insurance company bureaucrats. One poor woman was denied coverage for her breast cancer treatment because the insurance company decided that she was too young to have cancer. Stuff like that happens all the time in the U.S., and Americans are supposed to believe that "government bureaucrats" are going to be so much worse?!

First, I'll take my chances any day with a government bureaucrat over a private company bureaucrat. If a government bureaucrat screws me over, I can at least complain to my Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) or Member of Parliament (MP), and they have to answer to the voters. Governments have to answer to the voters too. Secondly, with Canada's universal health care, government bureaucrats don't interfere with everyday health care decisions. The decisions are between you and your doctor, honestly!

I've heard opponents of universal health care talk about how health care decisions should be left to doctors and patients. Well, you sure don't get that with private health insurance. Insurance company employees will deny people benefits for the lamest reasons, and get bonuses for doing so.

Americans are the savviest consumers in the world. They don't tolerate shoddy products and service from retail stores, car dealers, or auto repair shops. So what are you folks doing putting up with this crummy service from the private health insurance companies? Come on, everybody; you're in the land of Ralph Nader!

Don't let people scare you with the "government bureaucrat" boogeyman. Tell your families and neighbors the truth about universal health care. Tell them that Americans deserve better than they've been getting. Spread the word on your favorite blogs. And tell your Senators and House Representatives that you won't be fooled by the misinformation campaigns.